Stone Stupe

Extreme and complete stupification today paralyzes the planet’s archeological community, as strange and unusual stone carvings have recently surfaced deep in the bowels of Jerusalem, and no human seems to have the slightest clue as to what they mean.

The v-shaped markings are on the floor of a recently uncovered room at the dig site. They are about two inches deep and twenty inches long. Nothing else has been discovered that suggests what they are or who made them. (Is it too early to suggest aliens?)

“The markings are very strange, and very intriguing. I’ve never seen anything like them,” said Eli Shukron, one of the dig’s directors.

Utter bafflement reigns. Interested humans don’t even know where to start, in attempting to Know.

The archaeologists in charge of the dig know so little that they have been unable even to posit a theory about their nature, said Shukron.

What people don’t know, includes the following:

It is possible, the dig’s archaeologists say, that when the markings were made at least 2,800 years ago the shapes might have accommodated some kind of wooden structure that stood inside them, or they might have served some other purpose on their own. They might have had a ritual function or one that was entirely mundane. Archaeologists faced by a curious artifact can usually at least venture a guess about its nature, but in this case no one, including outside experts consulted by Shukron and the dig’s co-director, archaeologists with decades of experience between them, has any idea.

An upright stone located in the mystery rooms seems to track similar artifacts known to be used by people who predated, and later riled, Israelite potentates.

Such stones were used in the ancient Middle East as a focal point for ritual or a memorial for dead ancestors, the archaeologists say, and it is likely a remnant of the pagan religions which the city’s Israelite prophets tried to eradicate. It is the first such stone to be found intact in Jerusalem excavations.

The dig is located in one of the areas of the world where people are furiously fighting over dirt. To wit:

The City of David dig, where the carvings were found, is the most high-profile and politically contentious excavation in the Holy Land. Named for the biblical monarch thought to have ruled from the spot 3,000 years ago, the dig is located in what today is east Jerusalem, which was captured by Israel in 1967. Palestinians claim that part of the city as the capital of a future state.

The dig is funded by Elad, an organization affiliated with the Israeli settlement movement. The group also moves Jewish families into the neighborhood and elsewhere in east Jerusalem in an attempt to render impossible any division of the city in a future peace deal.

Given this, I have a pretty good idea what the mystery markings say. They say today what they said then; what they always say: Stop Making Sense.